The present invention relates generally to aircraft structures and more particularly to an aircraft structure which is designed to provide added safety for emergency landing situations.
Most airplane fuselage structures have rounded bottom portions. These aircraft fuselage structures tend to be somewhat elliptical or circular in cross-sectional shape. By utilizing such a structure, much usable space is provided. One of the problems with such a design, however, is that if the landing gear fails to function properly, such structure is not ideally suited for emergency landing situations.
Should the landing gear in a typical conventional airplane get jammed so that the landing gear will not lower into its proper landing position, and an airplane must make an emergency landing, the airplane will normally still try to land with its nose slightly up with respect to the tail as in a normal landing. Once the rounded bottom of such conventional airplane strikes the ground, it will tend to immediately tear it up and furthermore, the plane will tend to rock to one side or the other because it is supported on only one point or line. Once the plane has rocked to one side or the other, one of the wings is likely to hit the ground and cause the plane to spin around. Such spinning is likely to cause more damage to the wing and the bottom of the fuselage and may even cause more problems and destruction should the plane flip over. Actually, it is impossible to predict what a conventional plane would do under such emergency circumstances, but it is clear that the bottom thereof is very likely to be torn up and that the wings will almost certainly suffer some damage too. As the physical damage to the airplane increases, so does the likelihood of injury to the passengers or the crew.
In such an emergency landing over a large body of water, similar problems exist. A typical conventional aircraft still has the problem of being supported only along one line or point along the bottom of the fuselage and still has a tremendous tendency to turn to one side or the other because of the unstability of this situation.
It can therefore be seen that there is a need for an aircraft structure which will not tend to flip over or tear up on the bottom of the fuselage under emergency landing situations.